What if....Shops

[Northlander]

The commoner has to make even more than three hundred a month. Flour is ten coin a pop, and to live he'll need a small sack a day with a bit of water. At 231 days a month, there's three grand right there. Food and water from a house is a great gift.

A PC spends a tonne of time virtual, not logged on, and so gets by on far less 'real' coin.

The number of coins one has to carry around is silly, I'd like to see the obsidian go through devaluation and all prices drop with it, and I'd like to see even cheaper food around. I've forgotten what the topic was.

[Angela Christine]

I think some commodities, like food, may be over-priced specifically because PCs don't eat very often.  PCs are able to enter a hibernation-like state where we use no food, water, and don't get tired, get rested, degenerate from poisons or heal from injuries.  In this state they neither spend nor earn a single 'sid, though the rent does run down on rented rooms.  Since a PC may only need to eat 1/10th of what a typical person would need (depending on how much time the spend logged in) they spend more per mouthful to make up for it.


There isn't anything magickal about an independent PCs ability to make money.  The main factor in how quickly an independent makes money is how much time they spend logged in trying to make money.  A player that is logged in for a couple of hours on the weekends won't make enough money to even rent an apartment of her own.  If she is logged in 3-5 hours per day, every day, then she may appear to accumulate a comfortable nest egg quite quickly.  For people that are logged on a lot it is mainly a matter of lifestyle choices, if you spend 70% of your time on economic activities the way a typical Zalanthan really would, then you may become very prosperous -- more prosperous than a typical person.  If you work for a while and then settle down to drinking, spicing and whoring for as long as you can, the way a typical Zalanthan really would, then you won't get rich but you will have a lot of leisure time -- more leisure time than a typical person.

It isn't a mystery, the same thing happens in real life.  You see some story about a military officer with a family that is struggling to make ends meet while he is off in Afghanistan or someplace and think it is a shame that our boys don't get paid enough.  Then you see a military officer who doesn't have a family but instead has sweet duds and a shiny sports car and think he looks like he's getting paid pretty well.  The difference isn't the income, it is the family.  One person can live very well on an income that would leave 4 or 5 people struggling.

PCs usually don't have families, or at least not families that affect game play.  You don't have kids, an old granny, your two nephews that were left orphaned in your care when your sister died, or any other dependants.  No one relies you you for anything, every penny you make you can spend on yourself.  On the other hand you don't have parents, siblings, aunts and uncles or other family members to help you out of a jam or share expenses either.  Those little rooms that go for 500 a month would be big enough for a multi-generational family of a dozen people, assuming that only half the family tries to sleep at one time (some people would work during the day and sleep during the darkness, but others would prefer to work during the cool night hours and sleep during the heat of midday) and people spend lots of time outside the room.  One tenement used to have NPCs to show that people do hang out in the hallways and kids run around all over the building, in effect making the public hallways more like a communal rumpus room rather than just a passageway.

The way the economy works for a PC, particularly an independent PC, the player almost decides how much money they want their PC to earn.  If you want to play a tireless worker who is out hunting or gathering salt from dawn to dusk every single day, then you will make huge piles of cash, and then get eaten and soon be forgotten.  If you play a PC that likes to socialize, relax, unwind and just sit and enjoy a brewski once and while you won't make so much money.  If you play a lazy SOB who likes spice and whores a little much and only works when he has to, then you will be close to the line all the time because as soon as he makes any money he stops working and starts blowing it.

Sometimes people say that it isn't realistic for their PC to deliberately make less money than they can, to which I say, "meh".  People do it in RL all the time.  You see someone highly motivated who is holding down two full time jobs to make ends meet for their family, then you see an equally able person with no dependants who works part-time at one job and spends the rest of their time slacking off.  Some people of an entrepreneurial bent work their asses off nearly every waking moment to get their own business running, while many other people a content to clock 40 hours a week at a regular 9-5 job.  Players and characters find different things enjoyable.  Your character might love to spend a couple hours carousing at a tavern and then turn in and sleep all the way until late morning, if he can get away with it.  But for the player hanging out in the tavern is only fun if there are fun people to interact with, ale does not increase that enjoyment at all, and watching your PC sleep is about as dull as it gets.  A PC that spends a lot of their time generating income isn't necessarily being twinky, it is just that activities that the player enjoys happen to be ones that generate income.  A PC that spends days at a time sitting in a tavern not generating income isn't being twinky either, it is simply that the player enjoys that activity more than the alternatives.



Armageddon isn't an economic simulation game.  The day to day economics are blunted and simplified to give players more flexibility.  Ever play the Sims, where you have spend time every day washing the dishes, taking out the trash, showering, going to the toilet, and many other mundane chores necessary to keep your Sim from becoming a sad sack?   In Arm all that is optional.  You can have your character spend time on chores like that, or you can assume that most of that junk happens off camera, when you aren't logged in.  Or you can actually spend time doing daily chores that ought to be done but aren't required by code.  If you are the sort of person who wouldn't go around in dirty clothes you have to spend a bit of time cleaning them, but it is totally up to you if you want to slowly emote the whole process of stone age laundry care or just type "clean bloodied blood" until everything is back to clean.  Flexibility is good.


Angela Christine

[Dre]

I think some commodities, like food, may be over-priced specifically because PCs don't eat very often.  PCs are able to enter a hibernation-like state where we use no food, water, and don't get tired, get rested, degenerate from poisons or heal from injuries.  In this state they neither spend nor earn a single 'sid, though the rent does run down on rented rooms.  Since a PC may only need to eat 1/10th of what a typical person would need (depending on how much time the spend logged in) they spend more per mouthful to make up for it.


There isn't anything magickal about an independent PCs ability to make money.  The main factor in how quickly an independent makes money is how much time they spend logged in trying to make money.  A player that is logged in for a couple of hours on the weekends won't make enough money to even rent an apartment of her own.  If she is logged in 3-5 hours per day, every day, then she may appear to accumulate a comfortable nest egg quite quickly.  For people that are logged on a lot it is mainly a matter of lifestyle choices, if you spend 70% of your time on economic activities the way a typical Zalanthan really would, then you may become very prosperous -- more prosperous than a typical person.  If you work for a while and then settle down to drinking, spicing and whoring for as long as you can, the way a typical Zalanthan really would, then you won't get rich but you will have a lot of leisure time -- more leisure time than a typical person.

It isn't a mystery, the same thing happens in real life.  You see some story about a military officer with a family that is struggling to make ends meet while he is off in Afghanistan or someplace and think it is a shame that our boys don't get paid enough.  Then you see a military officer who doesn't have a family but instead has sweet duds and a shiny sports car and think he looks like he's getting paid pretty well.  The difference isn't the income, it is the family.  One person can live very well on an income that would leave 4 or 5 people struggling.

PCs usually don't have families, or at least not families that affect game play.  You don't have kids, an old granny, your two nephews that were left orphaned in your care when your sister died, or any other dependants.  No one relies you you for anything, every penny you make you can spend on yourself.  On the other hand you don't have parents, siblings, aunts and uncles or other family members to help you out of a jam or share expenses either.  Those little rooms that go for 500 a month would be big enough for a multi-generational family of a dozen people, assuming that only half the family tries to sleep at one time (some people would work during the day and sleep during the darkness, but others would prefer to work during the cool night hours and sleep during the heat of midday) and people spend lots of time outside the room.  One tenement used to have NPCs to show that people do hang out in the hallways and kids run around all over the building, in effect making the public hallways more like a communal rumpus room rather than just a passageway.

The way the economy works for a PC, particularly an independent PC, the player almost decides how much money they want their PC to earn.  If you want to play a tireless worker who is out hunting or gathering salt from dawn to dusk every single day, then you will make huge piles of cash, and then get eaten and soon be forgotten.  If you play a PC that likes to socialize, relax, unwind and just sit and enjoy a brewski once and while you won't make so much money.  If you play a lazy SOB who likes spice and whores a little much and only works when he has to, then you will be close to the line all the time because as soon as he makes any money he stops working and starts blowing it.

Sometimes people say that it isn't realistic for their PC to deliberately make less money than they can, to which I say, "meh".  People do it in RL all the time.  You see someone highly motivated who is holding down two full time jobs to make ends meet for their family, then you see an equally able person with no dependants who works part-time at one job and spends the rest of their time slacking off.  Some people of an entrepreneurial bent work their asses off nearly every waking moment to get their own business running, while many other people a content to clock 40 hours a week at a regular 9-5 job.  Players and characters find different things enjoyable.  Your character might love to spend a couple hours carousing at a tavern and then turn in and sleep all the way until late morning, if he can get away with it.  But for the player hanging out in the tavern is only fun if there are fun people to interact with, ale does not increase that enjoyment at all, and watching your PC sleep is about as dull as it gets.  A PC that spends a lot of their time generating income isn't necessarily being twinky, it is just that activities that the player enjoys happen to be ones that generate income.  A PC that spends days at a time sitting in a tavern not generating income isn't being twinky either, it is simply that the player enjoys that activity more than the alternatives.



Armageddon isn't an economic simulation game.  The day to day economics are blunted and simplified to give players more flexibility.  Ever play the Sims, where you have spend time every day washing the dishes, taking out the trash, showering, going to the toilet, and many other mundane chores necessary to keep your Sim from becoming a sad sack?   In Arm all that is optional.  You can have your character spend time on chores like that, or you can assume that most of that junk happens off camera, when you aren't logged in.  Or you can actually spend time doing daily chores that ought to be done but aren't required by code.  If you are the sort of person who wouldn't go around in dirty clothes you have to spend a bit of time cleaning them, but it is totally up to you if you want to slowly emote the whole process of stone age laundry care or just type "clean bloodied blood" until everything is back to clean.  Flexibility is good.


Angela Christine

Hmm...You have a knack for writing these very long seemingly well thought out posts, a post like this would have taken me 30-45 mins yet i have a feeling your a fast typist and have an amazing ability to put your thoughts directly into words so it takes you less then 10 mins...anyways i just think its really cool..

However while you make good points, you are trying to justify solo indy PC's making alot of coins in respect to the average commoner and i don't agree with you on it. I personally believe that family units survive better and are in economically better shape then a solo indy of any profession would be. I really think the code allows us to be more economically successful then ic realistactic we should be.

You are correct this is not an economic sim, this is a roleplaying game..and as one Imm once said and i quote losely 'when looking at any new code we ask ourselves how this would code enhance roleplaying'.
By restricting people from using the sell code we get:

Pro
-More PC to PC trading and therefore more potiential for RPing
- Less sid in the hands of players, whether or not Imm/players see this as a good thing i don't know.
-Almost all PCs should still be able to make enough coin to survive (eat and drink), anything extra will most likely have to be done through PC to PC interaction

Con
- Some indy off peek players may suffer extreme proverty with certain class/sub class combos, or not be able to survive at all
-Activity oriented people like myself, might be faced with the tasks of finding licenced buyers first before being able to sell the goods from my activities
-This is quite a change and some players not being able to easily and readily make sid might annoy and fustrate them.

At the end of the day we just need to ask ourselves this question:

How does a character being able to make as much coin as they wants without any PC interaction enhance roleplaying in the game?

Truthfully i don't know if preventing people from selling to shops is the answer or if making it harder to get rich is good for roleplaying..All i know is the i wish PC to PC trading was promoted more since haggling with PC is damn fun RP.

[Angela Christine]

Hmm...You have a knack for writing these very long seemingly well thought out posts, a post like this would have taken me 30-45 mins yet i have a feeling your a fast typist and have an amazing ability to put your thoughts directly into words so it takes you less then 10 mins...anyways i just think its really cool..

Thanks.  Actually I'm a fairly slow typist (around 40 WPM at best) and the long posts usually take me more than an hour.  But since I usually have the TV on at the same time it isn't clear exactly how much time is going to which activity.

How does a character being able to make as much coin as they wants without any PC interaction enhance roleplaying in the game?

I know it sounds like it should be a problem, but I don't think it actually turns out to be a problem that often.  One of two things happen:

1)  PC gets eaten while mining sid, salt, or stones, hunting, collecting wood, gathering plants, or whatever other isolated activity he can do to make money "without any PC interaction".  His bank account goes *poof* and has no affect on the PC world.  His corpse may or may not be found by a PC, if found can provide an economic boost to the finder, but generally not enough to set the world on its ear.

2)  The urge to accumulate wealth burns itself out.  Within a few weeks, a few months at the outside, you have everything that slight wealth can buy you.  You have the "look" you want.  You have a decent, but not fancy, set of gear.  You have a good mount, and probably a backup or pack animal.  You have the kind of tools and weapons you wanted, including those oh-so-expensive missile weapons if that's what you are into.  You have your own apartment, which you have added a few personal touches to.  Your own tent if you are an independent outdoorsy type.  You have accumulated cures for the most common poisons.  You have a couple sets of clothing/armor/disguises for different occasions, if that is important to you.   At this point there aren't any more short term cash goals.  Being able to buy house or wagon is still a long way off, and it takes money as well as contacts to do it.   If you want fancier armor it likely be upwards of 1000 sid a piece, and you will have to suffer PC interaction to special order it -- and you probably know that having fancy or unique gear will make you a target for unsavory types.  You have been around long enough that people are starting to notice you, and seek you out.  You are beginning to realize that non-stop crafting, hunting or gathering by yourself is really, really dull.

It may not enhance roleplay, but it doesn't actually harm it either.  The people who make money with little PC interaction are basically turning themselves into NPCs, and cause no more harm than all the other NPCs.  It gives people something to hook into, and later on they may expand to a more inclusive style of play.


Personally I like to play a new character for about 3 RL weeks before I join a clan or try to get into deep interaction.  Unfortunately that means that most of my PCs don't live 3 weeks.     I like to have stories to tell that I actually experienced, rather than crap I wrote up in my background.  I like to have a bunch of casual acquaintances before I settle down with my new best friend (my old best friend would have been a VNPC).  I like to be established and have a really good handle on my character before I get deeply involved with other characters.  (Not incidentally, the three-week delay also gives me a good chance to see what other characters are active in the same times and places as me, so I don't mistakenly get trapped by joining a group where I'm never going to see other PCs.)  And I have a few thousand in the bank, probably 2000-10000, just in case something comes up unexpectedly.  Not enough money to buy anything at the average Kadian auction, but enough to bribe my way out of a hole or recover from a robbery.





I think it would be very difficult to keep established players from getting unusually wealthy if they want to, without making it nearly impossible for new players' PCs to survive at all.  An amazing number of newbies seem to resort to selling their own clothes to stave off starvation, so apparently they find that it is quite difficult to make a living, much less get rich.  Unnecessary wealth probably doesn't damage the experience for anyone but the anachronistically-middle-class guy himself.  In the long term I think that making it seem even harder for newbies would damage game.


Angela Christine

[Anonymous kank with wings]

ooo...very good points xygax...I like your version of the idea better making registered merchant.

A registered merchant would be the only ones who would be able to sell to coded shops. PC to PC trade would still be completely open of course. The temperate(or kurac offical) could take care of assigning out licenses, for non-peek time players they could wish up.

Why not just deduct the cost of the trade license from the noob starting coins and leave it at that? Very few characters are not going to want to sell things they either produce or "find".

[Anonymous kank with wings]

I think it would be very difficult to keep established players from getting unusually wealthy if they want to, without making it nearly impossible for new players' PCs to survive at all.  An amazing number of newbies seem to resort to selling their own clothes to stave off starvation, so apparently they find that it is quite difficult to make a living, much less get rich.  Unnecessary wealth probably doesn't damage the experience for anyone but the anachronistically-middle-class guy himself.  In the long term I think that making it game seem even harder for newbies would damage game.

This makes sense. It really is a difficult scrabble to survive with a new character who wants to remain independent, even if you know what you're doing. Once you're past this stage and start making surplus coin, it just sits harmlessly in a Nenyuk account or is used to generate good interaction, liking hiring people or bribing templars.

[Anonymous kank with wings]

The reason that independants can become so rich is that the ways of making money (which almost exclusively requires leaving the gates of your city, something that almost every job I've heard of disallows) are so easy and with nearly limitless supply.

Yes but this is presumably balanced by the hunters and grebbers sometimes not coming back.

[spawnloser]

Only ONE person involved in any trade agreement needs a license.  One would assume that those people running the 'shops' are licensed.